Indians off to a flier in Chess Olympiad

August 29, 2012 10:47 IST

The Indian men's and women's teams cruised to identical 4-0 victories over Wales and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia respectively in the first round of the 40th Chess Olympiad at the Wow Hotel and Convention centre in Istanbul.

In the women's event being held simultaneously, the Indians made a similar sweep against different rivals.

Playing black, D Harika did not give many chances to Bojana Bejatovic on the top board while on the second, Eesha Karavade had it easy against Monika Stojkovska.

Former Asian champion Tania Sachdev also stood her ground against Dragana Nikolovska while on the fourth board Soumya Swaminathan completed the rout outclassing Simona Lakinska.

There were no major surprises as all top teams notched a maximum of two match points out of the first round.

However, there were individual casualties which are common in the opening round. Top seeds Russia dropped half a point when Evgeny Tomashevsky could not beat William Puntier of Dominican Republic and the highest-ranked had to be content with a 3.5-0.5 victory in the first round.

Surprisingly, third seed Armenia conceded a full point before settling for a 3-1 victory against Bolivia. Oswaldo Zambrana caused the biggest upset in the first round itself, defeating Sergei Movsesian, who donned the top board for Armenia as world number two Levon Aronian rested himself.

In another stellar performance, Malaysia took off 1.5 points from the fancied Holland.

Syria caused the biggest upset in team results defeating Roumania by a minimal 2.5-1.5 margin. In another upset, Slovenia lost to Jamaica by a similar margin.

The women's event did not have any major upsets. The Armenian eves lost a game before posting a 3-1 victory against Jordan while Hungary dropped just half a point to beat Syria by a 3.5-0.5 margin.

Fourth seed Ukraine also dropped half a point en route to a 3.5-0.5 win against El Salvador. The favourites here, China, Russia and Georgia romped home with full points without much ado.

The Chess Olympiad is the biggest chess spectacle with the presence of 158 nations this year. The team positions are determined through match points.

For every win a team is awarded two points while a draw fetches a one point split between two teams. There are 11 rounds in all to determine the winner.